“Letters for me? That is good,” said Ruth Kinsolving, as the
pleasant-faced servant brought in the morning mail. “Home letters, too,
Mother Amy.”
Grandmother Kinsolving smiled. She had learned to watch her daughter’s
face with considerable amusement, whenever missives from the
“pickle”-invaded Snuggery were received. There was always something in
them to disquiet the order-loving little lady herself, but the real
burden of anxiety was felt by Ruth.
Even when events appeared to the young folks in the old house to have
been running with wonderful smoothness, these absent home-makers
found cause for perplexity. Of late, however, there had been a dearth
of “happenings”; and the soul of Ruth had something akin to that of
Rosetta, in that she prophesied evil from this quietude.
“I dread to open them, mother. It is impossible but that something out
of common has occurred by this time.”
“Read away, daughter. Thee had been growing wiser, I fancied;
certainly, ever since thy visit home, thee has seemed less disturbed.
But, read away! I am the one who is impatient now.”
Ruth prepared to comply, but an interruption occurred in the shape of
a visit from an invited guest; and the fateful epistles of Content and
Octave were laid aside for a more convenient hour.
“There can be nothing in them that will not keep,” said Ruth to
herself, as she helped the guest to lay aside her wraps, and to make
herself comfortable for the day.
The visitor was an old friend of Amy Kinsolving’s youth; and there was
something so pretty in the meeting of the old ladies that Ruth utterly
forgot all other interests for the next few hours. Then, before the
“convenient” one arrived, another guest appeared; and that one no other
than Uncle Fritz himself.
To say that his unexpected arrival set everything in commotion is to
say only what would have been surmised by those who knew him best. But
the commotion was still a happy one, and, if he knew anything of what
Octave and Content had vainly tried to communicate, he did not mention
it. Indeed, to Grandmother Kinsolving’s inquiry as to when he had heard
from the children he replied: “Oh, I have but just come from there, I
made them a flying visit first, then hurried right away here. I did not
know I could get off so soon, though it has indeed seemed long to me
since I looked upon your face, dear madam”; and the genial gentleman
bowed over Mother Amy’s hand with a grace which won upon her heart,
opposed even as it had always been to ceremonies.
After awhile it became evident to Aunt Ruth that Mr. Pickel had
something which he particularly wished to say to her; and so, leaving
her mother to enjoy her friend, the pretty Quakeress tied on her
stiff bonnet and led him away to her favorite spot by the sea-shore.
But, from the expression of his countenance, anxious perhaps, though
not at all distressed, it did not appear that he had come to be the
bearer of ill tidings; and as his confidence had nothing especial in
connection with the events then enacting at The Snuggery, it need not
be speculated upon here.
Suffice it to say that this confidence delayed the two--and so
unlike--guardians of “a jar of pickles” for such an unheard of length
of time, that Mother Amy finally grew anxious, and dispatched the
pleasant-faced servant to hunt the delinquents up.
They came in, at last, looking so at peace with themselves and all the
world that Mrs. Kinsolving’s own face brightened; though she opened her
conversation with the gentle remonstrance: “I was sorry thee did not
come in time to see friend Barbara off.”
“O Mother Amy! That is too bad! Thee must forgive my inattention.”
“It is nothing, of course; there was no especial reason why thee should
have come, but I think she would have liked to speak with thee again.”
Ruth glanced at Uncle Fritz, and said nothing. What could she say,
since till that moment she had quite forgotten the existence of friend
Barbara Fletcher?
Uncle Fritz seemed, also, strangely unmindful of people’s prejudices,
for he sauntered to the window, whistling the very gayest and most
worldly of operatic airs. Amy Kinsolving looked anxiously toward her
daughter, fearing she would reprimand the gentleman for his lack of
taste; but she need not have feared, though Ruth’s fearless tongue had
corrected more than one such offence, swift on its commission.
Since Ruth did not object, and seemed, indeed, to be lost in some happy
thoughts of her own, Grandmother Amy softly sighed in her relief. Aloud
she said:
“I need not ask thee if the children are doing as they should. I see by
thy face that there is nothing amiss; but, if Fritz does not object, I
should like to hear thee read the home letters now, daughter.”
“The letters?” asked Ruth. She had forgotten them along with Barbara
Fletcher! Again she shot that funny glance of hers “Fritzy Nunky’s”
way, and this time a very pretty pinkish color crept up into her
cheeks. “Mother! thee will think I am a heartless girl; but I had
forgotten the letters, too. I have not read them.”
“No, I do not think thee heartless--but please to read them now,”
answered Mother Amy, with a peculiar smile.
And with her cheeks brighter than ever, Ruth opened the two letters.
“I’ll glance through them first, mother; thee knows I like to do so.”
For this aunt of many tribulations had learned that there were some
happenings which even her honest tongue would best withhold from the
gentle old mistress of The Snuggery. If she had told Mother Amy quite
all that went on in her beloved home, perhaps her recovery would not
have been as rapid or as thorough as it had been.
Mrs. Kinsolving and Uncle Fritz fell into conversation, while Ruth
extracted the sting, as it were, from the home letters before she
shared them with the others. But, after awhile, it seemed even to these
two patient souls as if this proceeding was one of infinite labor and
thought, judging from the time it consumed; and they turned from the
window through which they had been watching the play of some little
ones upon the lawn, to inquire the reason.
Then, with a cry of alarm, they each sprang forward, as Ruth, for
almost the first time in her life, nearly succumbed to the weakness of
fainting.
Nearly, but not quite. The terrified look in her mother’s eyes, and
Uncle Fritz’s sustaining clasp recalled her fleeing senses. “I--I’d
like a drink of--water!”
She had it on the instant, and, after she had drunken part of it, her
color came back and she was able to speak quite firmly. “It is about
as bad as it can be, but lest thee should think it worse than it is, I
will try to read them. Fritz, thee should have told me.”
Then she resolutely took hold of the closely written sheets, and,
disdaining all Mr. Pickel’s offers of assistance, read them through
to the end. Those who were familiar with the varying tones of Ruth
Kinsolving’s voice would have judged from it then that she was very
deeply moved. Even Uncle Fritz, who should have been so much a
stranger, understood it; and had Melville heard her he would certainly
have said, “Aunt Ruth means business!”
Poor Mother Amy was almost as much disturbed by the tidings which were
so ambiguously conveyed through Octave’s and Content’s stories as her
daughter had been; but she was the first to recover her scattered wits.
“Then, since no telegram has come, it must have all turned out for the
best.”
“It has, dear madam; it has, indeed!” cried Uncle Fritz.
“The best, Mother Amy! Can thee see any ‘best’ even in this?”
“Why, yes, my child. It is best for Melville to have had this chance,
this Providential blessing; and it is as well that it should all have
been gone through with without thy knowledge. Thee would have worried
thyself ill.”
“Humph!” said Ruth; replying to her mother as she had rarely before
replied.
Then she turned to Uncle Fritz. “And so thee has known this all along,
and did not tell me?”
Poor Fritzy Nunky almost shivered in his shoes; but, being of the
same valiant stuff as his small nephew, he rallied to the occasion.
“Yes, sweetheart, I knew. But I would not have had thee know it for a
fortune, till it was done and safely done.” At which remarkable speech
Mother Amy opened her eyes most widely, though Ruth dropped hers.
“Well,” said that young person at last, and after a rather
uncomfortable silence; “since every inconceivable thing has happened
which could happen, I suppose there is no objection to my going home.”
“Not the least in the world,” answered Uncle Fritz, generously.
“No; it is high time we went. Thee had best go and pack up, my
daughter, while I have a word or two with Fritz, here. We will go
home, or start for home to-night, by the evening boat.” Grandmother
Kinsolving’s tone had that ring of authority she so rarely exercised,
but which there was no mistaking.
Ruth gave her mother one glance, then stooped and kissed the fair old
cheek before she hurried from the room. But again the stalwart Fritz
had fallen to trembling; and that before the gentlest of little women,
in the meek garb of a Friend, whose question might mean much or little,
according to the hearer’s mood: “Well, Fritz?”